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Like us, many of you have probably been anxious for weeks to see a plethora of benchmarks featuring AMD's EPYC processors. An EPYC-equipped server arrived today courtesy of AMD and TYAN and is now in the process of being tested at Phoronix. Next week we should have some initial comparison numbers to feature of the AMD EPYC 7601 processor under Linux while in the weeks ahead will be more extensive numbers in looking at the Linux performance in different areas followed by FreeBSD/BSD results and other interesting tests. Here's our first look at this Tyan Transport SX TN70A-B8026 server.

The EPYC 7601 is AMD's current top-end server offering and features 32 cores plus SMT for yielding 64 threads per socket! The 7601 is clocked at a 2.2GHz base frequency, 2.7GHz boost frequency across all 32 cores, or 3.2GHz for its maximum single boost clock frequency. Each core has a 512KB cache and there is 64MB of L3 cache. AMD EPYC processors support eight memory channels and the upper-end EPYC CPUs support DDR4-2666 memory. This high-end AMD EPYC processor carries a price tag of $4200 USD and has a 180 Watt TDP.

The EPYC 7601 and most of the other line-up can run in a two-socket configuration, but for this initial testing is just 1P testing. We hope to be able soon to test a 2 x 7601 configuration as well as the processors at the lower end of the spectrum.

The Transport SX TN70A-B8026 is a barebones server that is one of several EPYC products currently being sold by TYAN. The TN70A-B8026 supports one EPYC CPU, 16 DIMM slots support up to 2TB of DDR4 RDIMMs, 24 front hot-swap 2.5-inch drive bays, IPMI 2.0 support, dual 770 Watt 80+ Platinum PSUs, and other leading features among EPYC servers. The 24 NVMe 2.5-inch bays are made possible thanks to EPYC's design yielding 128 PCI Express 3.0 lanes.

Those wishing to learn more about this Tyan 2U EPYC barebones server for now can find the product details at Tyan.com.

This initial EPYC Linux testing at Phoronix is being done with the 7601 backed by 8 x 16GB (128GB) of DDR4-2666 memory. Thanks to AMD and Tyan for making this testing possible.

Stay tuned for some initial results next week, among many EPYC Linux tests to come, though this weekend I may still get out some initial teaser results, at least via @Phoronix on Twitter. Beyond the hundreds Phoronix Test Suite / OpenBenchmarking.org test profiles, if anyone has any special test requests for this Tyan EPYC server, feel free to let me know via Twitter or the forums -- ideally accompanied by an automated script or at least documentation on running the desired workload in an optimal manner, so it can be easily incorporated into our fully-automated, open-source Phoronix Test Suite benchmarking software.

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 10,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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